‘Know All’Syndrome 09/05/2013

‘Know All’ Syndrome is different in many ways in that excepting the subject every one else suffers by paying a price for a half baked job. These are blue collared people whose tall talk doesn’t usually match their skill, be it plumbers, carpenters or electricians and we had evidence of this over the years.The unfortunate fact is we just cannot do without them with our electrical gadgets taking turns to go on strike and leaky taps calling for urgent attention and the furniture looking miserable for want of a coat of paint or varnish. After the ‘demands’ of the first two were met we decided to give our sofa set a face lift in keeping with the new upholstery.

For once it was not difficult to locate a carpenter who had one look at the three piece and claimed a coat of varnish would make it look even better than a new set adding that I recommend him to all my friends after he was through with his job. He gave a long list of items to be purchased and came promptly the next morning with a helper and went about his job immediately ordering his elderly assistant around. In the two and half hours they worked, they took three coffee breaks and called it a day by noon. The next morning they took up work on the three seater (having finished varnishing the two single sofas the first day) and completed their job in an hour and collected their wages.

Now we are wondering whether our sofa set acquired a face lift or a face fall ! It’s been a costly lesson learnt for taking people at their Face value.